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Miscellaneous unorganized material/WPBF
edit History WPBF first went on-the-air January 1, 1989 owned by Brenda Skipper and Sylvia Salinas. The original plans called for the station to be an independent. However in mid-1988, CBS (which was due to lose its longtime Miami affiliate WTVJ to NBC) bought FOX affiliate WCIX (now WFOR-TV). That station only provided a Grade B ("rimshot") signal to Fort Lauderdale and Broward County because its transmitter was located farther south than the other Miami stations. CBS persuaded the longtime ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach, WPEC, to switch to CBS in order to get a city-grade signal in Fort Lauderdale. In Fall 1988, ABC made the decision to affiliate with WPBF rather than with former CBS affiliate WTVX. These changes occurred on the day of WPBF's sign-on. The station had bought a large inventory of classic sitcoms and cartoons but now had no time to air them. It sold this programming to WTVX a couple of months after signing-on when that station shut down its news department. In 1993, WPBF was sold to Paxson Communications which at the time owned several FM radio stations and a few ABC and CBS affiliates. In 1997, Paxson sold their radio stations and network affiliates (including WPBF) in order to finance their acquisition of stations for the PAX network (now ION Television) with channel 25 going to the Hearst Corporation, its current owner. As soon as the transaction was finalized, Hearst handed over control of WPBF to its majority-owned subsidiary, Hearst Television (formerly Hearst-Argyle Television). All Hearst ABC affiliates, including WPBF, preempted Saving Private Ryan in 2004. The station was one of three ABC affiliates in the state of Florida that preempted the movie. After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion took place at 11:59 P.M. on June 12, 2009, 1 WPBF began broadcasting from its current pre-transition channel number, 16. 23 edit Digital programming The station's signal is multiplexed. On WPBF-DT2, Comcast digital channel 208 (in Palm Beach, Martin, and southern St. Lucie Counties) and channel 194 (in northern St. Lucie and Indian River Counties) is the Spanish network Estrella TV. 4 Previously, WPBF-DT2 was part of The Local AccuWeather Channel known locally as "Weather First TV". This was streamed live on their website. edit News operation Former WPBF logo used from 2000 until September 2009Initially, WPBF had a small news department. After being purchased by Paxson Communications, the station added additional newscasts to its schedule. For a long time they struggled with ratings in their own market. This can be attributed to WPLG's very strong over-the-air signal in Palm Beach County and its availability on Comcast throughout the area. In recent months however, WPBF has been making great strides in the ratings and, in the May sweeps period, WPBF came in second place for the early weeknight time slot. On July 12, 2006, it started airing a weekday 4 o'clock newscast called Weather First at 4. While the main intention of this new broadcast was to cover West Palm Beach area weather, news updates and headlines were added after a short time. This production is streamed live on their website. It is the only station in the area to air news weeknights at 4. On July 17, 2006, WPBF added thirty minutes to its weekday morning newscast which then began airing at 5:30. It became a full, two-hour broadcast on January 28, 2008. They debuted a new traffic reporting system featuring data from Traffic.com on February 14 that included a new traffic segment, "Beat the Traffic", seen weekdays. Expansion of local news continued with the launch of weekend morning news on March 8. On August 18, 2008, WPBF began broadcasting local news at Noon during the week which is also streamed live on its website. On September 14, 2009, the station premiered a new logo, set, and graphics package while expanding their weeknight 4 o'clock newscast to an hour. They dropped news in the 5 P.M. hour to make room for Dr. Phil, which had moved to the station from WPTV; they have since re-instated news in that timeslot. WPBF's weather radar is known as "First Alert Weather Radar" and is located near its studios. The station does not maintain a sports department. WPBF remains the only local news station in the West Palm Beach market that does not air its newscasts in high definition and with WFOR in Miami now broadcasting in HD, WPBF is the only local news station in all of South Florida not yet broadcasting its newscasts in high definition. edit Newscast titles *''NewsCenter 25'' (1989-1995) *''PBF News'' (1995-1999) *''WPBF Eyewitness News 25'' (1999-2004) *''WPBF News 25'' (2004-2009) *''WPBF 25 News'' (2009-present) edit Station slogans *''The Area's Most Honored News Team'' (1989-1995) *''If It's WPBF-TV, It Must Be ABC'' (1992-1993; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Your Local News Source'' (1999-2004) *''Where You Come First'' (2004-2006) *''Weather First'' (2006-2009) *''The Fastest Growing Local News Station'' (2009-present) This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions. edit News team Their weeknight 4 o'clock news open. edit Current on-air staff (as of June 2010) Anchors *Paul LaGrone - weekday mornings and noon *Tiffany Kenney - Monday-Thursday 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm and Sunday 6:30pm and 11pm *Victor Blackwell - Monday-Thursday 5pm, 6pm and 11pm and Sunday 6:30pm and 11pm *Meredith McDonough - Friday 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm and Saturday 6:30pm and 11pm (also Tuesday-Thursday reporter) *Stephan Holt - Friday 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm and weekend mornings 5-7am, 8am-9am First Alert Meteorologists *Mike Lyons - Chief seen Mon.-Thurs. at 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 11pm (also Sundays at 6:30 and 11:00) *Eric Burris (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekend mornings 5am-7am, 8am-9am *Felicia Rodriguez - weekdays 5am-7am and Noon (also morning and 4pm news anchor) *Kate Wentzel (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - Friday and Saturday evenings Reporters *Tory Dunnan - weekdays *Stefan Holt - weekday mornings *Shelli Lockhart - weekday "Beat the Traffic" reporter *Cathleen O'Toole - weekdays *Terri Parker - weekdays *Ted White - weekdays *Alexis Rivera - Wednesday-Sunday reporter edit WPBF Alumni *Jon Shainman - Monday-Thursday 4pm, 6pm and 11pm and Sunday 6pm and 11pm anchor (Now at WPTV- Treasure Coast reporter) *Nathalie Pozo- Traffic reporter 2008-2010 - Now at WTVJ *David Bloom - later went to WTVJ, died in March 2003 while covering start of Iraq war for NBC News *Lee Polowczuk News Director 1988-2003 *Tom Donovan- Anchor (Now at WHP-TV) *Vince Kelly-Sports *Kristin Hoke - Anchor 2000-2010 (Deceased) *Jim Brosemer-Veteran Miami newsman was member of start-up team in 1989. 6 and 11 PM newscasts. Now a journalism professor. edit References #'^' http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf #'^' CDBS Print #'^' http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=694454 #'^' http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/16322.html edit External links *WPBF-DT *WPBF-DT mobile *ABC *Query the FCC's TV station database for WPBF